Hello! Hope you all have had a great week, and are having a wonderful Sunday so far. I apologize for my lack of posting over the past week. Needless to say, it was a crazy one. James and I went to a conference Thursday and Friday last week at our church, which was nothing short of amazing. I figured it would be, but was still surprised by how much I learned and took away from the experience. I won’t get into it all right now, but I’ll definitely be sharing some insights over the next couple of weeks here.
I am also in the process of making some changes to the blog, so bear with me over the next couple of weeks. I will try and make the transition as smooth as possible, but seeing as I am not the most technically inclined person, we will just have to see how it goes!
In other news, it was my 24th birthday yesterday! It’s crazy…I still feel like I should be turning 20 or something. Time sure does fly by. We were pretty tired after the two-day conference, so we mainly just relaxed which was really nice. But we did manage to go out for breakfast and do a little birthday shopping:)
Anyways, I haven’t shared a devotional in quite awhile, so I thought I would share a bit of what I read this morning from the book of Daniel. To give you a little context, Daniel has just been asked to interpret the kings dream to him—something that none of his other counselors were able to do. In fact, the king had just decided to kill all of the wise men in the kingdom because they were not able to interpret said dream. Talk about pressure. But, while Daniel had every right to be afraid of what the king might do to him if he failed, he chose to take a different approach—prayer.
“Then Daniel returned to his house an explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.”
Daniel 2:17-18
When Daniel learned of their predicament his first reaction was not panic, but instead to gather his friends together and seek the Lord in prayer. How often do we face difficult situations and our first reactions are panic and fear? Our natural instincts tell us to be afraid, when really fear does nothing to help us in overcoming the situation. Can we conquer anything through panic? The answer, of course, is NO.
Instead, we need to focus on prayerfully seeking God’s face in the midst of any and every challenging circumstance or situation. Ultimately, he is the only one who can help us overcome the fear we face.
So, next time you feel afraid, remember to choose prayer over panic. Choose to seek God before any other natural response takes over. I promise things will turn out much better in the end.
Well, that’s all for today. Like I said, look for some new and exciting changes to come over the next couple of weeks! Have a great day and God Bless:)